Bullock Museum to host free program about Texas archaeological site expanding knowledge of human history in Texas

FEBRUARY 25, 2025 (AUSTIN, TX) — The Bullock Museum is hosting a free High Noon Talk that digs deep into the discoveries of the Gault Archaeological Site on Wednesday, March 5 at 12 p.m. The findings at the Central Texas excavation site have redefined scientists’ understanding of human history in North America. Artifacts from the Gault Site are currently on view at the Bullock Museum. 

“Our understanding of human habitation is always expanding with new research,” said Margaret Koch, Director at the Bullock Museum. “Long-time collaborators with the Bullock, the Gault team’s incredible work helps us understand our deep Texas roots and the human experience.”

The Gault Archaeological Site is located in Central Texas about 40 miles north of Austin, halfway between Georgetown and Killeen. Spanning over 20,000 years of human habitation, it offers rare and compelling evidence of early human occupation in the Americas. The site includes artifacts from the Clovis culture, which dates to roughly 13,500 years ago and was previously thought to be the oldest culture in North America. However, archaeologists have also found artifacts at the Gault Site dating to thousands of years before Clovis. These findings have transformed our understanding of early life on the continent.

Visitors can learn about the site that redefined how long humans have been in Texas by joining Dr. Jon Lohse, President of the Gault School of Archaeological Research (GSAR), for a High Noon Talk in the Texas Spirit Theater on March 5. The Bullock’s monthly High Noon Talk program seeks to tell interesting, and often untold, stories of Texas in a casual lunchtime lecture setting. At the March program, Dr. Lohse will speak about new insights from the Gault Site into how people first settled in the Western Hemisphere, along with new research from Central America that provides broader cultural context. 

"For years, work at Gault helped North American scholars build a paradigm for what Clovis culture represented, and then helped tear down an older part of the paradigm that argued that Clovis culture represented the earliest peoples to enter into the New World," said Dr. Jon Lohse, President of the Gault School of Archaeological Research. "Today, the Gault School of Archaeological Research is expanding this lens beyond Gault into other parts of the Americas. We're sponsoring an ongoing project in Central America that's helping to show how complex and dynamic the Peopling process really was during Clovis times. Influences from North and South America spread way beyond those continents as early as 12,000 to 13,000 years ago."

Research from the Gault Site was instrumental in the development of the Bullock Museum’s Becoming Texas gallery. When the gallery opened in 2018, visitors were greeted with a projectile point from the Gault Site that dated back roughly 16,000 years, challenging traditional ideas of when humans first arrived in the Americas. Visitors still encounter artifacts from the Gault Site on view in Becoming Texas at the Bullock Museum. Currently on view are a set of four incised stones, some of the earliest known artwork in Texas. These stones from the site help paint a picture of the people who lived in Central Texas as early as 13,000 years ago.

The High Noon Talk: Capacity, Connections, and Clovis - The Gault Site will take place at the Bullock Museum in the Texas Spirit Theater on March 5 from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. The program is free to the public. For more information, including the Gault Site artifacts on view at the Bullock Museum, visit TheStoryofTexas.com.

#  #  #

The Bullock Museum, a division of the Texas State Preservation Board, is funded by Museum members, donors, and patrons, the Texas State History Museum Foundation, and the State of Texas.

Downloads

• Download PDF

---

​​The Bullock Texas State History Museum, a division of the State Preservation Board and an accredited institution of the American Alliance of Museums, creates experiences that educate, engage, and encourage a deeper understanding of Texas. With dynamic, award-winning exhibitions that illuminate Texas history, people, and culture, educational programming for all ages, and an IMAX® theater with a screen the size of Texas, the Museum collaborates with more than 700 museums, libraries, archives, organizations, and individuals across the world to bring the Story of Texas to life. For more information, visit www.TheStoryofTexas.com or call (866)369-7108.